Senators Sports & Entertainment owns and operates the Ottawa Senators, a team in the National Hockey League (NHL), as well as the Canadian Tire Centre, a 20,000-seat sports and entertainment venue.
The arena hosts the Senators’ home games throughout the season and playoffs, and major events that come to Canada’s capital city, including concerts, family shows and other entertainment acts.
The Senators are a high-performance team that made a deep playoff run in 2017, counting on the reliability of a defensive-minded system and star goalie. With regular season games and such incredible playoff success, the Senators organization needs to be confident it has a reliable system to back up its operations, too.
From office space to sellout crowds
From its 220-person office to its sold-out arena events to many sites throughout the region, the Senators have the needs of a high-performance business. And the Senators need to be able to scale for many events and situations.
“In any given week we might host a couple of sold-out hockey games and then need to convert the building for a sold-out concert or a sold-out family show,” Vice President of Strategic Development Jeff Publow said. “And it's really important that our communication system allow us to adapt to those different operating environments.”
The Senators also had to figure out how to enable employees to stay connected on the go, whether they are at the Canadian Tire Centre offices, seeing clients or at other regional offices.
A need from the gates to the ice
Publow said fans come to the Canadian Tire Centre expecting a great experience in a dynamic environment, and a stable communications system is the backbone of that environment.
From the time people pull into the parking lot through the end of the night, the Senators’ employees want to give the fans a positive experience, which can only happen through seamless communications amongst employees and with customers.
In addition to typical phone calls between suites, the kitchen and other operational areas, the Senators also needed a communications system they could rely on during key, tension-filled moments during hockey games that required the time keeper’s booth to connect with the box upstairs.
When fans contact the Senators’ offices, they also expect to be routed to the right person who is able to help them.
Mitel’s reliable solution
The Senators chose MiVoice Business and MiContact Center to improve its fan experience and keep communications strong even under heavy demand.
With MiContact Center, employees can route fans to the right person so their experience is seamless.
Whether it’s the reliability needed in the time keeper’s booth or being assured that a call from a fan’s suite will reach its destination, MiVoice Business gives the Senators a peace of mind. The solution also helps Senators employees work from many places throughout Ottawa and the greater region.
“Bottom line, we have confidence in our communication system. When we're hosting a busy concert or a sold out hockey game, there's a million operational details to be worried about – top of mind of course is ensuring that we deliver a world class fan experience,” Publow said. “And knowing that our communication system and backbone is there operating the way we need it to allows us to have confidence that our team and our staff members can deliver on that fan experience.”
High-performance tools for a high-performance organization
“In this industry there's a large focus on being a high-performance organization, both on the ice and also in the business world,” Publow said. “And that parlays well when we look to partner with companies like Mitel, where we're really looking for high-performance partners and high-performance solutions to enable us to continue to grow and evolve.”
Senators Sports & Entertainment is looking forward at solving the problems they may encounter down the road, not just today.
“We've got a great partnership with Mitel, as we move into the future we're confident that our communication needs are going to be met,” Publow said. “We're going to be able to adapt and evolve together and ensure that as we move forward into the future of sports and entertainment that our communication systems and our technology needs are going to be well in hand through our partnership with Mitel.”
